Food for thought (Repost: Letter to a Christian Girlfriend)

By Shu - 06:36

Repost from a note I found while trawling through blogs and forums.
My studying is going very smoothly indeed.

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When I first entered the National University of Singapore, I was
the loner kid who did not bat an eyelid at girls. Girls, with all their
idiosyncrasies like gossiping or buying pairs of shoes after shoes, were
too much for me to handle. I was more interested in climbing, and girls
only served to take away my climbing time.

You first approached
me. You started giving me gifts, like chocolates and small cards. These
little nuggets made a boring day suddenly exciting. In all your little
notes, you asked about my life; you dropped encouragements; you made me
feel special in a way no other person has managed to. Any unfeeling
heart would melt under these circumstances.

In the one year that
we spent together, I cannot remember a single unhappy moment. Sure we
had disagreements, but we sorted them out as soon as they surfaced.
Never once had we an argument. I still remember the incident when you
crashed the car. To the best of my ability, I arranged for a mechanic to
repair the damages, negotiated for a good repair price between the
accident victim and the mechanic, and paid for all the upfront costs
first. Do you remember how I told you then since you did not have any
liquid assets; you could try to barter your fully stocked cupboard with
the parties? A little nasty yes, but all for your own good. In the end, I
still helped you make the payment with the money I scrupulously saved.

I
still remember our overseas trips. Those weeks spent away from
urbanisation, getting to learn more about each other, and gaining
insights together. All these memories I hold close to my heart. But they
aren’t important anymore. After one year together, without warning, you
dropped a bombshell on me – convert or break up. I was devastated. I
cannot begin to describe the hurt and anguish I felt. You’ve left me
behind to walk the long road ahead on my own. I languished in my grief. I
can’t even do the thing I loved to do most – climbing. All the fight
has been drained out of me. How long will it take to pick up the pieces?
I wonder. One Chinese proverb particularly lent me support: If you can
pick it up, you should be able to put it down. In my desire to
understand how a religion, which in its entirety claims to preach love
and compassion, drove you to unilaterally and resolutely want the break
up, I achieved revelation. Indeed, the learning process is accelerated
when feelings are invested.

Undone by 2 Corinthians 6:14

Do
not be unequally yoked together with non-believers. You believe that
God created you in His image, and that He is ‘a member of your body’.
Because of this religious doctrine, you believe that the resulting union
between a Christian and a non-Christian is unholy. You believe that you
will not be granted entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. You believe that
if you commit the sin, you will burn for eternity in hellfire.

I
realise now how you could be so calm when you made your decision to
break up known to me. I collapsed with grief, whereas you could still go
jamming with the rest in the immediate aftermath. You felt like you
were doing God’s work, and you found peace in Him. I had no such
consolation. My life just fell apart. In sorrow, I grasped at reasons at
why you might be unhappy with me. Did I treat you badly? Was I overly
possessive? Was I not spontaneous enough for you? All these queries drew
a blank.

Only after reading the scripture did my hurt,
disappointment and anger subside. I realised the very difficult
spiritual position you were in. Just like how Christ is head of the
Church, the man is to be the head of the house. I cannot provide you
with the spiritual support that is demanded of me in the bible. The
bible you believe to be the divinely inspired word of God.

A Reason-Driven Life

You
shared with me how you attended Sunday school since you were in primary
school and finally got baptized in secondary one. You shared with me
how you were previously a naughty and unruly girl, and how religion has
changed you for the better. Unfortunately, I do not share that same
background as you. But like you, I am a social construct of our
upbringing.

I used to be the typical nerd in school and studied
diligently. From a young age, I’ve learnt to correlate good results with
hard work. If I studied hard and obtained good grades, I deserved all
the credit. If I decided to be lazy, took a back seat and get punished
with bad grades, then I reap what I sown. I do not praise the Lord for
everything good thing that happened in my life and vice versa, blame
Satan for everything bad. Rather, I encourage and berate myself in
accordance to my successes or failures. As a result of my firm belief in
effort and reward, my grades have always been above average, if not
excellent. In the blink of an eye, 23 years have passed. In that same
duration I have lived without a God in my life.

Because of this
upbringing, I am firmly steeped in reason and anecdotal evidence. Just
like how you are indoctrinated in unquestioningly faith as a virtue, I
am indoctrinated in intellectual scepticism as a merit. For me to
convert to become a fundamentalist Christian like yourself, instead of
becoming a half-past-six Christian (as one Christian friend has
appallingly recommended me), I need to be surrounded by overwhelming,
mutually self-reinforcing evidence. I embarked on reading the Bible, and
within the first few chapters of the holy book I already found several
distasteful contradictions. Contradictions I am unable to reconcile. At
this point, we must decide if we think whether intellectual scepticism
or blind faith more virtuous. Should a child be inquisitive and ask and
question and debate or should he be obedient and servient and accept
everything spoken to be the truth of the world? Perhaps I failed to read
the Bible spiritually, or adopt its teachings with the same
unquestioning acceptance as you did. If I were to become a baptized
Christian, then all my queries have to be answered to me by the faith,
one by one. Prepare yourself for a deluge of intellectual bombardment.

Big Bang Theory

Mathematicians
have calculated that the probability of us coming into existence out of
random chance is very, very minute. Therefore, some higher being must
have created us. But this hypothesis creates more problems than it
solves – the problem of infinite regress. If you follow the logical
train of thought, if God created us, then who created Him? Christians
tell me that their Judeo-Christian God is uncreated, and that he has
simply always existed. There is no analogy, no basis for comparison
against this argument in nature, and I cannot wrap my head around this
claim. If I were to worship a God, then naturally it behoves me to
worship the ultimate creator. Can you conclusively prove to me that your
God is the ultimate creator? Just because you firmly believe in
something doesn’t necessarily mean it is correct. If I firmly believe
that there is a teapot orbiting around the Earth, then the onus is on me
to prove my theory. The onus is on you to prove your God to me.

So many Religions, Which one is True?

How
are we supposed to know which religion is the true religion? Just
because someone follows a certain faith does not necessarily mean it is
the right path. Perhaps no one religion contains all the truth of the
world. Perhaps every religion contains fragments of the truth and it is
our responsibility to identify those fragments and piece them together.
Or perhaps there are no gods. No one can say for sure. There were 3200
religions in the world since the start of time. Since only 1 religion
can be correct, then the other 3199 religions must be wrong. Christians
say their God is the one true God, as do the Muslims, Jews, Hindus and
more. And radicals from each faith are willing to be a martyr for what
they think is the highest ideal.

Do you not see that the place
of your birth determines your religion? If you were born in Japan,
you’ll be a Shinto. If you were born in India, you’ll be a Hindu. If you
were born in Tibet, you’ll be a Buddhist. If you were born in Norway
during the times of the Vikings, you’ll believe in Thor and his hammer!
The fact that Christians think a child to be the child of God, instead
of a child of Christian parents, or Hindu parents, or Muslim parents, is
unacceptable.

Do not all religions appear strange to those who
stand outside of them? A case in point: when I recounted my predicament
to a PRC friend, she found religion to be a ludicrous myth. Only an
insidious force such as religion can break up such a happy relationship,
she told me. She also shared with me how the Fa Lun Gong Movement is
creating a lot of social problems in China.

Age of the Earth

Creationists
argue that the world is 6000 years old. But science, through using
several independent methods of radiological dating, has repeatedly
proven the world to be about 4.5billion years old. Dinosaur fossils are
tested to be about 65million years old. That the age of the Earth is
6000 years old is a myth. How Christians stand steadfast in their story
of creation in the face of such staggering evidence defies
understanding.

Noah’s Ark

Genesis 6:15 states that Noah's
ark was 300 cubits by 50 cubits by 30 cubits in size. Today, experts
agree that a cubit was approximately 18 inches, yielding a volume (if
perfectly rectangular, the most voluminous possible shape of three
unequal dimensions) of 1,518,750 cubic feet. Into this, you must fit two
of each of the 30,000,000 species on earth (60,000,000 creatures
altogether), plus all the food needed to keep all of them alive for
about a year when the flood raged. Even without the mind-boggling amount
of food required, it is technically impossible to pile all the
creatures in the ark, together with space for bedding or room to stand.
Furthermore, Noah has to go the Arctic to collect 2 penguins, go to
Antarctic to collect 2 polar bears, go to Kalahari Desert to find 2
meerkats, go to Asia to find 2 tigers, and get 2 Tyrannosaurus Rex to
enter the ark.

Also, if it rained for 40 days and 40 nights,
then given the severe drop in salinity of the seawater, most of the
fragile marine species should have died out – something not evident in
the world today. Given the above analysis, the story of Noah’s Ark
cannot be true.

Bible not being a Good Moral Compass
God tells you to stone people who believe in other gods to death

If
thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the
wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice
thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast
not known, thou, nor thy father; Namely, of the god of the people which
are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one
end of the earth even unto the other end of the Earth; Thou shall not
consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shall thine eye pity
him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shall thou conceal him: But thou
shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to
death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone
him with stones, that he die (Deuteronomy 13:6-10).

Abraham makes an offering of his son to appease God’s whimsical wishes

And
it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and
said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said,
Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee
into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon
one of the mountains which I will tell thee of (Genesis 22: 1-2).

Abraham
heard an imaginary voice in his head telling him to murder Isaac. He
subsequently lifts the blade to his son’s throat. These actions demand
unquestioning belief. It requires what philosophers refer to as a leap
of faith. Earlier, God had promised Abraham that he would spread his
seed far and wide for him. A dilemma is presented at this point. How can
I possibly spread my seed if I kill my only son? That God ultimately
did not claim the sacrifice is of secondary importance. What if one day,
you hear an imaginary voice in your head, telling you to sacrifice your
child? I can only imagine hapless believers, killing their children
over what they think is God’s mandate. To people outside the faith, this
act of abomination is nothing less than cold-blooded murder.
Furthermore, this contradicts with the ‘Thou shall not murder’
commandment. So many inconsistencies, yet you can effortlessly accept
where I find it morally repulsive to.

Moses the Prophet

Now
therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman
that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that
have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves
(Numbers 31: 17-18). Moses, who was angered at the Israelites merciful
restrain towards the conquered Midianite people, ordered his men to kill
innocent children in cold blood, and kill every female that is married
to the Midianite men. What sin did the Midianite male children and
married females commit that demands this genocide? The greatest irony is
that it was Moses who brought down the 10 unbreakable commandments
inscribed in stone. Given the savage nature of what you have already
witnessed, it should come as a big surprise to you that one of the
commandments were actually Thou shall not kill. Yet, here was Moses,
ordering the mass slaughter of children and women in cold blood, not
unlike the gas camps of the Nazis or the killing fields of Pol Pot.

Rape My Daughter as you Please

Now
as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city,
certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the
door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying Bring
forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him. And the
man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them,
Nay, my brethren, nay I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this
man is come into mine house, do not this folly. Behold, here is my
daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and
humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto
this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him:
so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they
knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the
day began to spring, they let her go. Then came the woman in the dawning
of the day, and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her lord
was, till it was light. And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened
the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and behold, the
woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her
hands were upon the threshold. And he said unto her, Up, and let us be
going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the
man rose up, and gat him unto his place. And when he was come into his
house, he took a knife, and laid down hold on his concubine, and divided
her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all
the coasts of Israel (Judges 19: 22-29).

This entire
particularly nasty paragraph describes the inferior status of women,
equivalent to that of playthings, as sanctioned in the Bible. The man
offered his concubine to be raped, instead of fighting to defend her, as
I would have done without hesitation. Following that, the same man
desecrated her body when she died instead of providing her with a proper
burial. I hope this piece of scripture shocks you as much as it has
shocked me. In today’s civilised world, such acts of betrayal and moral
destitution are considered socially repugnant, yet these are the
teachings you meekly accept with unquestioningly faith. These are the
issues that you must grapple with if you truly accept your faith in its
entirety.

Cherry Picking within the Bible

Of course now
Christians will be protesting, because they claim that Jesus, who has
descended onto the world to die on the cross for our sins, has changed
the world since the nasty days of the Old Testament. No doubt the New
Testament is an improved version of the Old Testament from a moral
position. The idea is that God had himself incarnated as a man, Jesus,
in order that he should be hideously tortured and executed in order to
redeem our sins. And not just the original sin of Adam and Eve, but all
future sins, whether we decide to commit them or not. Ultimately when we
die, God is both judge and jury in the decision to allow entry into the
gates of the Holy City. So then, why does he need to die on the cross
for us to atone us for our sins just so he can judge us again at the
end? Why not just forgive us outright? Is he not supposed to be all
powerful and all merciful?

In fact, contrary to what many
Christians believe, the New Testament openly endorses the laws of the
Old Testament. Think not that I am to destroy the law, or the prophets: I
am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For I verily say unto you, Till
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from
the law, till all be fulfilled (Matthew 5: 17-18). All scripture is
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:
13). It cannot be any clearer. The laws in the Old Testament are to be
obeyed. It is downright shameful how Christians can interpret otherwise.

Christian
apologetics reason that in the days of the Old Testament, we had to
follow the moral, civil and priestly laws. For them, because we are not
under a theocratic system today and because by sacrificing himself Jesus
fulfilled the priestly law, only the moral laws apply today. This
explains why homosexuals and adulterers were stoned in the past, but are
not today. This explanation is flawed. The moral law is created by God,
the civil law by whichever political system was governing the country
at that time, and priestly laws by the priest. If God commanded that
adulterers be stoned, then it is solely a moral law set by him. Do the
civil or priestly laws have the right to interfere? Do you mean to tell
me that the state or the priests have more power over the supreme
Creator of your universe? How can Christians allow the moral law of
their God be tainted by the secondary laws set by humans, especially
since human beings were intelligently designed to be imperfect? I would
think that if you were a true Christian, you would follow your God’s law
to the letter.

As much as the Bible supposedly preaches values
of love, compassion and mercy, it also advocates slavery, hate,
pettiness, anger, jealousy and narrow-mindedness. Just one line from
Confucius could triumph all the moral pretentiousness of the Bible. “Do
not do unto others what you do not wish to be done unto yourself”.
Imagine if this phrase was incorporated as one of the tenets of the 10
commandments (instead of the morally inept “You shall not covet your
neighbour’s wife” commandment). It is obvious that the world will see
much less conflict or better still, no conflict at all. Not to mention
the irrational breaking up of a perfectly happy relationship.

Disagreement among the Different Sects

There
are many different Christian denominations, all of which disagree with
one another over which doctrine to place emphasis on, which church to
follow, etc. The faith is spilt into the 3 branches of Roman
Catholicism, Anglicanism and Protestantism. Under each of these
denominations there are further sub-groups. For example, under the
Protestant group, further denominations include the Anabaptists,
Pentecostals, Adventists, Baptists, Calvinists, Presbyterians,
Congregationalists, Methodists and Lutherans. Not forgetting other sects
like the Puritans or Pletism that have died out since the 1800s.

As
if the disagreement between various religions is not conflict enough,
denominations within the Christian faith all disagree with each other.
Catholics believe that Mary had no original sin, remained free of sin
throughout her life, is the “Mother of God” and the new Eve. They also
believe of her bodily assumption into heaven instead of death. Other
Christian factions disagree. Seventh-day Adventists believe that the
Saturday, originally the seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, should
be the Sabbath. Other Christian factions disagree. Mormons think that
all drugs, including caffeine in coffee and tea, are a travesty to
biblical laws. Other Christian factions disagree. It appears that
conflict, not consensus, is a central theme of Christianity.

Debate over Homosexuality
Recently, the issue of gay pastors has been thrust into the limelight in predominantly Christian America.

In
August 2006, leaders of the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination
began a tense debate in Minneapolis on whether to ordain gay men and
lesbians. The denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,
is considering lifting a ban on noncelibate gay and lesbian pastors,
permitting the ordination of people in committed same-sex relationships.
Let’s see what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. If a man also
lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed
an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be
upon them (Leviticus 20: 13). Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not
inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor
idolater, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with
mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, not
extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6: 9-10).
Is it not peculiar how the Lutheran Church leaders interpret the
scripture in a vastly different way from how you interpret it? Such
church leaders, with the power to influence the minds of all of their
gigantic congregations, has despite the warnings listed down in the
Bible, decided to go ahead with the vote to ordain gay pastors. Can you
not see how religion is susceptible to starkly contrasting
interpretations, and subsequently abuse? I cannot imagine the day when
Singaporean church leaders decide to interpret the Bible in the
fundamentalist way (that their religion is the one true religion and all
other religions are profoundly false and necessarily wicked), and
incite religious hatred against other faiths.

In November 2006,
leader of the 30million-member National Association of Evangelicals in
the US, Pastor Ted Haggard, resigned after being embroiled in a gay sex
scandal with another man. The other party, prostitute and masseur Mike
Jones felt he had to expose the hypocrisy behind Pastor Ted’s anti gay
marriage preaching on one hand, but engaging in sexual activities with a
man on the other. Pastor Ted has since been stripped of his ministry.
Saying one thing but doing another? That’s old news to me, at least
where Christianity is concerned.

A Holistic Interpretation

Here
is what the Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, has to say on the issue
of homosexuality. “Well if you take the issue of homosexuality, there is
no doubt that more so in the Old Testament, but also present in the New
Testament, that there are a number of texts, not as many as people
think there are, but there are a few, that clearly regard homosexuality
as wrong. But it is a question of how you interpret the Bible - whether
it is right to extract a few isolated texts, rather than seeing the
whole message of the Bible; the whole message of Jesus.” He says that in
the past during the Roman times homosexuality as a choice is frowned
upon; whereas from the understanding that biology gives us today, it
appears that homosexuality is a circumstance. Progressive values
espoused from such an authority figure in the religious circles are
steps forward for mankind. Christians need to read the Bible in its
entirety and inculcate the over-arching loving and compassionate message
of Jesus.

If the Bishop of Oxford says that extracting a few
isolated texts from the Bible is morally unjustifiable, then extracting
the sole “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers” line, and
basing your decision to break up on religious dogma should be
considered most absurd! Worldwide Conflicts as a Result of Religion

I
see how you remain blissfully (or should I use woefully) unaware of
current world affairs. Whenever I point out conflicts arising as a
result of religion to you, I notice how you always looked shocked. It is
as if you live in protective little bubble your religion provides, and
think it impossible how so much evil can arise out of a supposedly good
thing like religion.

You are fortunate you reside in Singapore,
where religion is kept separate from politics. Having the Internal
Security Department hawk over the evangelical groups to toe them in
line, though admittedly draconian, does have the merits of preventing
religiously intolerant religions like your own from inciting racial and
religious hatred. Case in point: Pastor Rony Tan shooting his mouth off
in his sermons.

Do you not see that incompatible religious
doctrines have divided our world into separate moral communities, and
these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed? Indeed,
religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it has been at
any time in the past (Crusades and Spanish Inquisition). The recent
conflicts in Palestine (Jews vs. Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox
Serbians vs. Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians vs. Bosnian and
Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants vs. Catholics), Kashmir
(Muslims vs. Hindus), Sudan (Muslims vs. Christians and animists),
Nigeria (Muslims vs. Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea (Muslims vs.
Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists vs. Tamil Hindus), Indonesia
(Muslims vs. Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite vs. Sunni
Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians vs. Chechen Muslims;
Muslim Azerbaijanis vs. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a
few cases in point.

I sincerely hope that I have opened your
eyes to blood spilt all over the world by people who fight over whose
God is truer. You still think religion is always a force for good? Think
again.

Radicalism

In 1994, Reverend Paul Hill shot Doctor
John Britton and his bodyguard, James Barrett outside the doctor’s
abortion clinic in Florida. The crime of the doctor, as religiously
perceived by Hill, was the carrying out of abortion procedures for a
woman who requested it. In a religious fervour to do his version of
God’s work, Hill turned his back on progressive values and went against
civil law. In a statement before his execution, Hill said that he felt
no remorse for his actions, and that he expected a great reward in
Heaven. In his last words, he encouraged others who believed abortion
contravenes the word of God to ‘do what you have to do to stop it’.

This
psychopath, who somehow managed to get himself ordained as a reverend,
is telling his followers to go and commit more of such cold blooded
murder of abortion practitioners. Has he decided to selectively skip the
‘Thou shall not kill’ commandment? In the course of his journey to
become a priest, has the values of love and compassion and mercy (the
same values that you probably hold dear to your heart) not been drilled
into him? How can he commit such an atrocity and yet remain defiant even
till his deathbed? Perhaps just like the peace you found in God when
you decided to break up with me, he found his peace too. This same
‘peace’ has led to uncountable nights of me sobbing into my pillow. The
same can probably be said for the wife and young children the doctor has
left behind.

In Malaysia, dispute over the use of the word Allah
in Christian doctrine had erupted in conflict. Churches were vandalised
and set on fire by fanatical Muslim youths who believed that the word
Allah belonged their faith and not to Malaysians who practiced other
faiths. Retaliatory attacks were soon launched on Muslim mosques. How
many more places of worship has to be defaced, how many more lives have
to be lost, before you peer out of your cocoon and see the truth of the
world?

Religion is seen by the scholars as false, by the
commoners as true, and by the politicians as useful. Case in point:
United States President George Bush Jr. told the American public that
God gave him the mandate to attack Iraq. In a media boo-boo, he said
that it was a crusade against evil. Crusade. The word rings a bell,
doesn’t it? The reason behind the illegitimate invasion was to destroy
the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein kept, but they found
none. They found barrels of black gold though.

Christian Leaders as Good Role Models?

AWARE Saga

Earlier
I pointed out how the Bible is not exactly the best moral compass.
Similarly, the actions of some Christian leaders leave much to be
desired. A right-wing Christian group who perceived the campaigns of
AWARE (a non-profit organisation), as being pro-homosexuality,
storm-troopered the advocacy’s group annual general meeting and snatched
power. AWARE saw a stunning leadership change when newcomers captured 9
of the 12 executive committee posts. Older members questioned their
motives as well as the sudden influx of new members who joined AWARE
just months before the AGM. The new team sacked the AWARE centre’s
manager, a paid employee, changed the locks at the AWARE office and had a
stand-off with old guard members who turned up later.

With four
of the new exco members attending the same church – and having the same
‘feminist mentor’ in the form of lawyer Thio Su Mien – and all espousing
‘pro-family’, anti-gay sentiments, it is obvious that a religious group
is trying to impose its agenda on a secular non-profit organization. Do
you not see the problem here when religious people, no doubt in the
zeal to do God’s work, go beyond simply evangelising their beliefs to
attempting to pass their preferred moral practices into legislation. By
their actions, the Christian Right has notoriously established a
benchmark for religiously inspired activism that may well be emulated by
people of other faiths. This is the start of a slippery slope. The
consequences of skidding down that slope are unimaginable for a
multi-religious society like Singapore’s.

Father Joacquim Kang

Kang
was sentenced to seven and a half years in jail in 2004 for
misappropriating $5.1 million in church funds while serving as a parish
priest at St Teresa's Church. I wonder if his followers will still have
faith in him. Leadership by example, anyone?

Pastor Rony Tan

Rony
Tan, the leader of Lighthouse Evangelism, an independent church with
12,000 members, ridiculed Buddhism and Taoism in his sermons to his
church. The most appalling thing was that as he was inserting snide
remarks and nasty untruths about other faiths, the entire congregation
was laughing together with him. I shudder to think that some of my
Christian friends may be sitting among those in that congregation.

Catholic priests molesting children

The
catholic sex abuse cases are a series of lawsuits, criminal
prosecutions and scandals related to the sexual abuse committed by
Catholic priests against minors. Beyond the actual abuses, much of the
scandal focused around the actions of some members of the Catholic
hierarchy who did not report the crimes to legal authorities and
reassigned the offenders to other locations where they continued to have
contact with minors, giving them the opportunity to continue their
sexual abuse. Again and again, we see examples of how these people with
religious authority abusing their power and causing hurt and suffering
in their charges. How many more examples do you need before you
understand my unwillingness to be blindly led around by the blind?

Personal Contradiction between 2 of the 10 Commandments
Commandment 1: You shall have no other gods before me
Commandment 5: Honour your father and mother.

My
father and mother pray to other gods. When they die, as the eldest son,
I have the traditional duty to conduct funeral rites for them, which
would inevitably conflict with Commandment 1 should I have converted to
the Christian faith. But if I do not take up this duty, then I am guilty
of contravening Commandment 5. A lose-lose situation. Personally, I
place a higher premium on filial piety than on religious dogmatism.
During his 2009 National Day Rally speech on religious tolerance, Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong recounted stories of Christian converts who
refused to do as their parents wished on their deathbed and ended up
hurting the very people who have painstakingly brought them up for many
years. Fulfil your parent’s deathbed wishes – to do or not to do?
Honestly, I am repulsed at the actions of those ingrates and will
definitely do as my parents wished to the best of my ability.

I
found it ridiculously easy to reach this conclusion just with rational
reasoning. There is no need to commit to a book to resolve moral
questions of this sort.

Natural Disasters

Explain the
2004 Boxing Day tsunami or the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. When the waves of
the massive tsunami crashed into the city of Aceh and when the gusts of
the hurricane slammed into New Orleans, what was going through God’s
mind? Why did God, in all his omnipresence and omnipotence, not stop the
tsunami from crushing the lives out of hundreds of thousands of
innocents, many of them children? What crime did the children commit?
Hundreds of thousands of lives were killed in an instant. These were
people of faith, dying! In New Orleans, did he not hear the prayers of
the elderly who fled to the attics to escape the rising waters, only to
be slowly drowned as they murmured their prayers? What kind of
all-powerful and all-compassionate God is this?

Not
surprisingly, the people who survived reaffirmed their faith. Praise the
Almighty Lord for delivering us from harm, they would say. But do they
not see that the same God who has supposedly spared their lives has also
mercilessly drowned infants in their cribs? If you accept that there is
a God, then He must be powerless, or evil, or He does not care.

Why
is it that the Bible can dedicate huge chunks of texts to encouraging
slavery, to promoting gender inequality, to curtailing sexual behaviour,
to describing in gory detail how to punish adulterers and homosexuals,
yet it cannot prophesize natural disasters of such biblical proportions?
God told no one of the impending doom. Science did. Hours before the
tsunami or hurricane struck, meteorological calculations and satellite
imagery foresaw the imminent disaster. Meteorologists rushed to warn
people to evacuate the danger zone. Without science, more lives would
have been lost.

Isn’t it amazing how God can address the prayers
of those who ask for good grades in their exams, or good results for
their competitions, but fail to hear the prayers of those about to die?

Promising Young Lawyer Killed in Mumbai

Ms
Lo Hwei Yen, 28, a promising Singaporean lawyer, was one of at least
188 people, including 22 foreigners, killed in a shooting and grenade
rampage by 10 militants who terrorised Mumbai for 60 hours in 2008.
Incidentally, she happens to be a devout Christian.

Why did God
put such a promising girl like this girl into the world, only to claim
the life back when she is at the prime of her life? Is the purpose of
her life to die in the cross fire of some religious extremists?

Do
you think the Muslim terrorists from Pakistan, indoctrinated with their
highest ideal of introducing an Islamic state in South Asia and
liberating Muslims residing in Indian-administered Kashmir, cares about
the collateral damage? It saddens me to note what extremism in the name
of religion has led to the passing of a beautiful yet innocent soul like
Ms Lo. It should sadden you too.

Satan as the Convenient Excuse
Please
do not be so foolish to think that Satan is the cause of all these
evils. It was apparent in my conversations with you that you think that
Satan is solely responsible for everything you cannot explain. In my
conversations with more enlightened Christians, they tell me that Satan
influences, but ultimately the choice belongs to the person. Father
Joacquim Kang and Reverend Paul Hill should have known better. And if
God is all-powerful, why didn’t he eliminate Satan? Or better still, why
didn’t He simply just not design Satan?

For Better or for Worse? Till Death do us Part?

Much
to my chagrin, there have been several attempts by Christians who
earnestly invite me to their church time and time again. I appreciate
their goodwill and kind gestures. However, my issues with the faith
cannot be simply resolved by repeated visits to the church.

In
one of your letters to me, you told me that you liked me for my big
brain. I’m assuming that you like me for my intellectual discourse.
Oxymoronic then, that what attracted you to me in the first place is
also responsible now for turning you away.

This brain of mine is
my blessing. It is also my curse. I just wonder if I were indeed
intelligently designed by Him, why didn’t He erase my persistence in
reason.

The heartacheDull sensation in my chestNever seem to fade away

There
is no all-seeing, all-loving God which keeps us from harm. Atheism is
not a recipe for despair. I think the opposite. By disclaiming the idea
of a next life, we can take more excitement in this one. The here and
now is not something to be endured before eternal bliss or damnation.
The here and now is all we have – an inspiration to make the most of it.
Atheism is life-affirming, in a way religion can never be.
Richard Dawkins, Oxford Professor and Prominent Atheist

- Jansen Ko
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I think this very well written, and heart wrenching, letter pretty much sums up my thoughts about religion. Though I think his 'science' arguments are a bit iffy. Anyway science is not as unbiased as it seems. But hmm, in any case, it's not so much that I'm against religion, I really do want to believe, but somehow every try just makes me more and more doubtful.